Wednesday, August 16th, 2006

Israel Won! No, Hezbollah Won! No, Condi Won!
Now that the “cease fire” has taken effect, the spin machines are being ramped up to full speed. Hezbollah soldiers and their supporters in southern Lebanon are celebrating their victory over Israel and America. Some would agree it’s a moral victory—not that they agree with the morals of Hezbollah, but that they survived the attacks at all. Of course, George W. Bush can’t fathom why they would claim victory. After all, Unifil (the UN army) and the Lebanese army have been called to move in and disarm Hezbollah. Of course, just because they’ve been called in does not mean they’ll be successful. And Hezbollah, like them or not, have been leading the effort, with money from and Iran and Syria, to rebuild war-ravaged towns.

I am not going to say one side one or another. I am going to admit something I feel George and Co. can’t admit—I live in a bubble. I only know what I’m told by one biased newspaper or website or another. So my opinions about who is the more righteous in the Middle-East are moot. But El presidente has expressed frustration with the lack of American support in Iraq, which even your basic antipathetic slob can appreciate. Whereas 6 years ago the scuttlebutt was that the W. was just a puppet, in recent years he’s been seen as more pro-active in the degradations that neocons perpetuate. Now I’m getting the feeling he’s just a puppet again. Big Business is making money off of Iraq, and off of Palestine, to be sure, and for W to express “frustration,” for him to express “bewilderment” at Hezbollah’s claims to victory, leads me to remember that people who do not get themselves elected are no kind of leader.

Insurance is No Insurance in Hurricane Season
A federal judge has upheld a decision that insurance companies do not have to pay out to Katrina victims if their homes where damaged by “wind-driven-water.” They still have to pay for damage done by just wind; but if water was involved, no pay out necessary. For a long time now I’ve been ranting and raving about what a scam insurance is. It’s gambling in reverse, with payouts for unlikely misfortune instead of unlikely good luck. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry. And I don’t want to hear that these companies will go broke if they pay-out on all of these claims. How can an insurance company expect to not get multiple claims when they insure houses in the same area? And if the insurance companies are so scared of losing their shirts, why don’t they get insurance? Isn’t bankruptcy essentially a kind of insurance? I say, these companies should have to pay what they said they’d pay, or file for bankruptcy. At the very least, they should have to disclose to future clients that they did not pay-out to hurricane victims.

Macacagate in Virginia
It’s a small story now, but may get bigger. On the campaign trail in Virginia, Republican senator George Allen pointed a nearby man out to the crowd, calling him “Macaca.” The man in question works for the oppositions campaign, and follows the senator, taping speeches as a form of research for the challenger. The man is of Indian descent, and was born in the US. But that didn’t stop Allen from telling the crowd to welcome Macaca to America. A macaca, as everyone knows, is a kind of monkey. Everyone except for Senator Allen, it seems, who claims he didn’t mean to offend, and didn’t even realize macaca was a word. Analysts say this probably won’t be enough to overturn the incumbent’s seat in the general election in November. But Allen is a possible to run for prez in 2008, and if he does, you just know it’s going to come back.

More Republican Fracturing in Texas
With Tom Delay out of the race in Texas, and the courts upholding the ruling that his name can’t be replaced on the ballot by another Republican, the GoP has no choice but to get behind a write-in campaign for the candidate of their choice. But who? So far they haven’t even picked David Wallace, Sugar Land mayor, who’s been campaigning since Delay made his announcement a few months ago. Of course, Wallace is peeved that they are even holding meetings to decide who to back. And while the Democratic candidate, Nick Lampson is probably a shoe-in, the GoP will probably press the issue anyway, just to force Lampson to campaign that much harder and use up that much more of his campaign fund. So he’ll have less when he runs for re-election, you see. So add this nonsense to the nonsense in Rhode Island, Ohio, and New York, and you get an idea of how the ‘Publicans are losing it.

Control Room
I friend recommended I watch this documentary, as I was getting interested in politics and political news. No understanding of the US’s influence in the Iraq is complete without knowledge of Aljazeera, the “CNN of the Middle-East” (my appellation). The documentary itself is as much about the US invasion and liberation of Baghdad as it is about the news network itself. Of course, history will have something to say about the invasion, but Aljazeera itself is portrayed as being a very human network, with it’s quirks and idiosyncrasies and biases, which nevertheless attempts to main journalistic integrity and not let internal bias confound reporting of the simple truth. Rumsfeld, among others, has said that Aljazeera simply lies, and other detractor say they sensationalize atrocity and unnecessarily publish graphic content. But what I got most from the documentary, yet again, is that right or wrong, these are human beings, complex individuals, and most importantly, unique individuals who cannot be described by stereotypes.

I think the documentary did a good job of showing the human side of American troops in the conflict as well, both good and bad, as well as the respect Aljazeera has earned from other journalists. I was not moved by the documentary, but it did enough to inform me of Aljazeera and, if not their importance, at the very least their influence in the Middle East. They’ve been banned by more than one regime, and I’m always going to side with the underdog, against censorship.